Two More Goals Achieved - Monday 27/04

Can't believe I didn't have the mother of all bruises this morning. Not a mark to show for all the pain and uncomfortable night. Still hurts but we'll talk about that later after I finish the weekend. Just thought its probably less confusing to go and edit the Weekend blog so its back to the weekend and I'll rejoin today soon or as its turned out tomorrow.

Well it's really Tuesday evening now and still before midnight - think I'm going for a record!

Monday was a brilliant day - cold but not raining. Although the sky constantly threatened to let loose whatever was hiding in the dark grey clouds, it never did, instead providing bright contrasting swathes of sunlight at add odd times throughout the day. Somewhere in all of this I need to learn how to properly operate my new digital slr. "Auto" is terrific but I know I can get much better depth of field because I've done it previously. Trouble is I stumbled across it rather than reading the manual so it hasn't stuck yet. A fairly convoluted segue into the fact that I really love the light that happens in these sorts of conditions and took out quite a bit of time from work to try and capture some of it.

If I can crack the technology, I think there's an opportunity for an exhibition at some time in the future.

The tasks for Monday were to remove all of the dead Manchurian Pears along the drive and plant their newly purchased replacements. Took me most of the afternoon because I wasn't hurrying and kept wandering off to pick up branches and in one instance a $20 dollar note caught under some eucalypt branches tangled with a dead pear. It went into my pocket and the branches went onto the pile. Can't believe I didn't take a picture of the dug in and mulched trees but that's the way it was so we'll have to make do with a before shot.

Had to replace a jubilee clip on one of the smaller fire hoses as it had come off at the T-junction. Fortunately Nicco had found a brass fitting attached to a bit of the right diameter poly pipe on Saturday and I knew just where he'd left it, complete with an almost new clip. Job done I fired up the pump and gave the newly planted trees a good soak as well as watering all the other new plants and the remaining plants in the garden.

That done it was time to look for the elusive gate posts. I'd made several previous attempts by guessing where I reckoned they should be but without success. It was time for a slightly more scientific approach. As fence posts are roughly 3m apart and I had the line from several that had not completely burned below the soil, I got out the tape measure and kept going in a straight line, and digging up the soil about every 3100 - 3300mm. Should have been a piece of cake but obviously near enough had been good enough for the original fence builder.

I found the first gate post at about 17:00 and was almost prepared to call it a day but being bloody minded decided that the other couldn't be much more than 3500mm radius away because that's how long the gate was. Just a passing thought - how hard would it have been for the Main Roads guys to have removed my gates before they chopped down the bloody tree. Would have saved me the cost of two gates and taken them about two minutes.

Anyway they didn't and it took me about another ten minutes to find the second gate post. I dug around them and stuck a couple of gate fittings next to them so they would be easily visible in future. Very pleased with myself, I called Ros and headed for North Warrandyte and a warm shower.

What A Great Weekend! 25-26/04/09 with updates

Well it's 22:12 and 5 minutes ago I thought I'd broken my hip. Didn't but had a bloody good try. Christ it hurts. Wearing socks and slipped on the carpet and just measured my length sideways. Wish I'd been able to watch it happen. I think I will be very sore tomorrow morning.

Hardly the way to begin a blog with such a positive heading but that's the way the QDa crashes. QDa is what my grandchildren call me.

Saturday was planned to be busy day and so it was. Began the day in bed, writing up 3 x A3 pages (in texta) of the work areas and detailed description what was to be done not forgetting OH& S of course.

Ros and I got up to the farm about 09:45 and immediately set about cutting down dead trees and stacking them against the chook fence. It's a shame to have to cut them down but after 9 weeks with no sign of life then there's no question, there's no longer any life support to take them off.

Must confess I take a certain amount of pride in being able to drop a tree pretty much where I want it.

Losing a tree certainly changes the landscape and I think that Ros is not altogether happy with the resulting emptiness.

Shortly after we got started Cait Nicco and the kids arrived, bundled out of the car and after perusing the jobs list, started work in the vegetable garden. It actually took a bit longer than that. There seemed to be some confusion over what was required to be done and it wasn't until I'd explained that there were about four pages of instruction that the problem seemed to go away. I never did get to the bottom of that.

I'd like to keep going but I'm a bit over this hip and subsequent headache so I'm off to bed. More on the weekend tomorrow. - Cheers

Well it's been tomorrow for some time so back to Saturday. Cait and Nicco finally went off fully tasked to the vegetable patch and got into some serious work.

I cut down the third and final tree which I had been going to leave for Grocon as it was very close to the house and apart from the bloody leaves had been gaining a few degrees of slope each year.

Once again it fell exactly where I had anticipated and those who are wondering about hubris need be concerned no longer. It fell smack on top of the giant webber I had borrowed for Xmas and moved out of the way so it wouldn't get removed by Grocon. Of course I'd forgotten the bloody thing was there. It's only a fairly small dent, but I felt pretty stupid, particularly as it took me about 15 minutes of branch trimming before I noticed.

Jamie arrived shortly thereafter - it was beginning to look like a Volvo convention - probably not a bad collective noun - a "convention" of Volvos and after a quick look at the task list fired up the chainsaw and that was just about the last time he stopped except to refuel and re-sharpen the saw. The pile of logs against the fence just kept getting longer and higher only beaten by the pile of branches we were both creating.

Not to be outdone Nicco had created his own pile of grevilliea branches - nearly enough to mulch the whole paddock.

Cait in the meantime had got a bit dispirited about working on the vegetable patch, presumably because Ros had started thinking aloud about not wanting to spoil the view up the valley from the windows of the new house - not that we have a final design by any means. Wanting to give Cait something meaty to do, I took her down to the flat area below the tank where Macca & I had dumped a large number of barrow loads of bricks a couple of weeks earlier and explained that they all needed to be neatly stacked at one end so that we could snuggle the caravan into the side of the hill. The idea is that there will be some protection from the wind unless it comes howling in from the south west. All I could see of Cait for the next hour or so was her head bobbing up and down above the cutting as bricks went from scrambled shambles to an ever-increasing wall you could just about march a legion on for a short distance anyway. Hadrian would have been proud!

Called Ben on the mobile to see if he'd like to bring Willo up. The exercise would be good for them and I'm a bit concerned that it will all be cleaned up and Willo will have missed out. As is often the case I get the answering service and no Ben then or later.

A short while later Richard arrived with some tracing paper for me and an hour or so of willing labour which was quickly directed to increasing the size of the branch pile. If we ever set fire to it, they'll be panicking in Kinglake and Marysville.

I can't believe it's after midnight again and I haven't even finished Saturday.

Problem is I've spent several hours turning my newly acquired MacBook into a windows machine so I can continue to run some useful applications. More of Saturday and Sunday later - its bed time.

I'll publish this now and update again tomorrow - Cheers - Q

Cath - Jamie's wife arrived with their two girls Molly & Lea and lunch at about 2:00ish and were quickly followed by Sean another of Cait's school neighbours and his dad Rob. Sean has his own earthmoving business and had offered to help move whatever needed moving and this was the first time we'd had as chance to meet and inspect the site.

While the others ate lunch Sean, Rob and I wandered down the dam paddock and looked at the bloody great logs the Main Roads Dept had carefully parked just below the flat. I wasn't sure if Sean's skid-steer was big enough but he explained he had an excavator as well so it wouldn't be a major drama. A bit more of a wander around and over the flat to see what needed doing and then back up the slope to have a look at what I call the home paddock which is where most of the garden will be, where we stood about and yacked for a while before they headed off and I went back to work.

Somewhere in here the kids discovered the black mud at the bottom of a largish puddle in the driveway and just had to do something useful with it like painting Jamie's trailer. A great deal of fun was had by all.








The last thing I had on my agenda was to finish cabling up the electric fence for the goat who will hopefully not have discovered how to swim while holidaying at his temporary home. The much threatened rain must have been getting close because the temperature took a sudden drop. So much so that I decided to stop toughing it out and put on a long sleeved polarfleece - Thanks Stephen - before getting on with the last row of electric tape. Just got that done
and was walking back to the car when the rain started to get serious. I threw on my rain jacket and walked up to the area behind the chook shed where Jamie and Cath were still stacking wood and yelled, "Hey it's OK to knock off you don't have to work in the rain!. To which Jamie replied "Aaah we just thought we'd better keep going until you gave us the word to stop." I hope he was joking.

A couple of photos later - the rain wasn't quite pelting down and we packed into the cars and drove away leaving Jamie to change a stop light bulb before he too followed. Cath and the kids led the way with Ros & I behind her the first of the Volvo cavalcade.

We stopped in Research to order the biggest lot of fish and chips that I reckon they'd had to deal with for a while and Cait & Nicco went in to Eltham to top up on lubricating fluids. I took Ros home for a shower and returned to Research for the food.

Food and drink downed, we all headed for bed and an early finish to the blog. What a great day!

For me, very much in the spirit of ANZAC. A bunch of disparate people, working bloody hard together without expectation of reward, to help a mate.

Sunday 26 Well it's only supposed to be Autumn but it feels like deepest Siberian Winter or pehaps just a normal day in the Antarctic. Eventually dragged myself out of bed got breakfasted and after a bit of dithering around which generally means I can't remember what we were doing, went down to see if I could borrow Jamie's trailer for a couple of hours. CFA had arranged a "Wholesale Price Day" for all CFA members at PlantMart and I thought it would come in handy if we hade more than we could fit in the car.

The trailer was freely given and after pumping up the tires on route we wombled our way to PlantMart at Thomastown which was chock a block with CFA bods, not a few of whom were from St Andrews and other local brigades.

The temperature went down pretty much in inverse proportion to the number of plants we bought. By mid afternoon when we had filled three trolleys with fruit trees, lemon, navel orange, blood orange and mandarin. A Wollemi Pine that Ros has wanted as a Xmas tree for some time, as well as a new Waratah to replace one that hasd not survived. Groundcovers including myoporum parvifolium, the last three trailing rosemary they had, unfortunately only in 100mm pots, grevillea gaudi chaudi, several pots of herbs, a whole range of correa including one called "Little Cate", Dianella tasmanica and revoluta, Eremophila maculata - spotted Emu bush, Santolina chemaecyparisus - Lavender Cotton, a beautiful brown foliaged shrub the name forgotten, a couple of sets of grasses including lomandra "breeze", eight Sea Lavender and not least of all but certainly last, seven Pyrus ussuriensis - Manchurian Pears to replace those along the driveway killed by the fire. Subsequently discovered that I'd miscounted or lost one more and it should have been eight. Another example of what I'm calling "bushfire brain". Talk about a child in a lolly shop - apart from a car and a boat I don't think I've ever spent that much in one go and the great thing was I enjoyed doing it.

Car and trailer absolutely stacked to the gunwhales we drove up to the farm and very quickly offloaded everything into sheltered spaces among the trees and behind logs for additional protection and raced back to St Andrews at 40kph and then maxed to the speed limit because we had to get home, get changed or at least put on a clean pair of trousers in my case, pick up Angus, Phoebe and Lena one of our German daughters who was back alone in Melbourne and head back to the St Andrews Hall to attend an event which had been organised by local St Andrews people who'd formed a very effective committee to arrange a public thank you to St Andrews CFA and a presentation to members who'd been involved on Feb 7 and beyond.

We arrived at 16:50 just before the presentation began at 17:00 and despite the large crowd manged to find some space at the back of the hall. I made the mistake of going for some drinks for the kids and the adults, by which time the speeches had begun and I was stuck outside with three glasses of sparkling red. What a dilemma. I moved around to the side door and was able to hear most of the speech by Lex de Man CFA Regional Manager and only drank one of them.

Between speeches, a gap opened up again at the back so I squeezed in and handed them to Ros.

It was actually pretty hard to hear at the back of the hall but CFA folk were requested to make their way to the stage for the presentation. I asked Angus if he'd like to come with me but shyness overwhelmed him and he said "No thanks." Phoebe immediately put up her arms and said, "I'll come", so we struggled our way to the front of the crowd and up on to the stage. She was pretty happy until the crowd were asked to show their appreciation for us CFA wallahs and then it all became a bit much as she made herself tiny and snuggled into my shoulder.

I was the first to receive the cheers and my Thank You Certificate which was very nicely printed and framed, as well as an engraved Selangor pewter goblet. Asking if I could have the microphone for a second, I said, "That after the North East Fires in 2003/2004, I had marched with CFA through the centre of Melbourne, but nothing was as good as being thanked by your own Community!". Phoebe and I returned to the back of the hall via the side door and joined in the cheering and clapping as the presentations were made.

A great celebration is seldom complete without food and drink and as Phoebe pointedly asked, "Where's my dinner - I'm hungry?", the presentations were completed and we joined the queue for a barbeque dinner which certainly seemd to fill most of her spaces and mine. Dinner over, the kids joined with a bunch of others who were doing laps around the hall while we chatted to friends, acquaintances colleagues and neighbours. I was particularly chuffed to learn that Angela who we had met at the Royal Commission Briefing Day had really enjoyed reading the blog which she'd discovered via the article in the Leader.

As I've mentioned once or twice, its very gratifying and encouraging to receive such positive feedback so after everything else good about Sunday, Angela pretty much put the icing on top of the rich fruit cake which had been my day.

One Day I'll Learn How to Juggle

Friday 24/04/09

Hello Bloggees - it has been rather blank in the blogosphere. I'm hoping that you haven't all given up and gone away. I've been hiding inside my head for a few days struggling and juggling with  more balls than I know how to handle. 

Over the years I've tried to teach myself to juggle and even had a few lessons.  I can do it for a while but it doesn't seem to stick. I'm fascinated by what seems to be the zen of juggling, I can do it when I stop focusing on it but as soon as I realise that I'm no longer concentrating of course I start to try and control it, the rhythm goes and so do the balls. 

Not sure that it has the same root cause but I'm not very good at dealing with a bunch of  competing priorities particularly when it comes to spending money 

Over the last week or so I've agreed with my boss at IBM that my desire to work a three day week in IT needs to become a reality so that I can start to build up the Garden Design business and also continue the farm rebuilding process. It means a fairly big salary reduction at a time when we need all the money we can get to replace the house and other farm buildings. Concurrently I've started my first garden consulting assignment which is really exciting but I've been putting off for no good reason, calling the other potential clients that I met at the flower show and booking time to see them. My son has asked for and been committed a reasonable chunk of money so that he and his partner have the best possible chance of affording a house before the first home buyers grant gets halved post June. The insurance company asked for a statement from our bank allowing them to pay us the amount insured. It came as a bit of a surprise but after I talked to the bank  and discovered that while we would have significantly less cash in hand for building, we would have practically no mortgage and would be able to draw down on the money in the mortgage account if it was required. Apart from Ros having an instant meltdown it meant that we had to reprioritise our building strategy. $38K for a wooden barn now looks like a hell of a lot of money, particularly when a metal similarly shaped building is about $8k - $10k. Either way we need to ensure that we have sufficient for a house first. Checked with Nillumbik to see what was the biggest size shed I could build without permit. If you guessed 3m2 then you were spot on! However you can have several of them as long as you don't join them together. The caravan which we had expected to see  this weekend has a mechanical problem that will most probably resolved by next weekend. In the middle of  all  this, Ros suggests that one option might be to get the farm cleared up and then just let it sit, slowly appreciating in value and use the insurance money to buy somewhere else where the sailing was closer. I got quite excited at the prospect and began to think Gippsland, Perth, SA and especially Tasmania where they have trout fishing too. Head swirling I was still considering the possibilities when the Phoebster came into bed early one morning for  snuggle between us and I knew that it was going to be too early for a long distance break from the grandchildren and so it proved. I think I've committed to 5 years and then a check point. And of course there's the decision about the kind of vehicle I need and how much I will have to pay for it. Red ball, yellow ball, blue ball, green ball, multicoloured ba.. bugger there it goes again.

Somewhere in there I had two days sailing with Ian in La Pirogue from Yaringa Marina at the NW corner of Westernport Bay down around French Island and across to Newhaven Marina at the eastern end of Phillip island  where we spent a very pleasant evening and sailed back the following day. 

Tomorrow we're having a working bee up at the farm - cleaning up fences, finishing the goat fence for Woodie, moving more bricks, cutting down the vegetable garden hedge, cleaning up the veggie garden and more timber clearing and then we'll have lunch!  We'll have quite a crew with Cait, Nicco and the kids, Cath, Jamie and the girls from down the road in Valias St and of course Ros & the blogger. Richard will be up for an hour or so and we might see Ben, Em & Willo.

By the way, I liked the photo that was published in the Diamond Valley Leader so much that I'm going to see if they'll let me have it to use on my business card.

Busy day ahead - time for bed. 

 

Positive Things

Sometimes in the chaos which passes for life at the moment, it is difficult to remember that just being alive is a pretty positive thing. I've just re-read that and it sounds a lot more negative than I intended. This piece is meant to be a celebration of some of the good things that have happened.

There has to be a clever way to get better quality pictures in here but in the mean time try this link.
Link to picasa

Well the link works but as is so often the case, one finds out the easy way after the fact. It turns out that the pictures are loaded in "small" when one is in edit but if you click on the image when viewing the blog, then they expand to fill the screen. I refuse to tell you how long it took to discover this simple fact. Instead I'm going to bed very shortly as once again it is past midnight!

The pictures here and in picasa were taken at the farm a few days ago and feature butterflies in the Buddlea - several shots trying out my camera, and one each of the now famous plum tree and the Ginko which will most probably be just approaching maturity long after I've mouldered away into obscurity.

A poor segue way into something I've been meaning to chat about but haven't until now found an appropriate place. Far from being hidden and obscure, following my 15 seconds of fame on Better Homes & Gardens a week or so ago, NMIT produced a press release in which I featured and the local Diamond Valley Leader sent out a photographer to capture the aforementioned plum tree with me looking mostly tired but happy. Actually that's how I felt - I'll have to wait for this week's Leader to see what I looked like.

And now it's really time for bed.

Easter 2009

Firstly apologies to Jenny who wrote a thoughtful and reflective comment on the MIFGS post which I had missed until today and Sue an old friend from Perth to whom I've been going to respond since she wrote. While I don't expect a lot of feedback, it is a truly positive experience when one receives thoughtful comments such as these.

When we spoke to GROCON a week or so ago, we told them that we said we would be ready for them to start any time after Easter as that would give us time for a final fossick.

With that thought in mind, we have been very busy up at the farm over Easter. We did a pretty thorough final search for things of interest/value on Friday. I spent probably the best part of two hours sorting through the accumulated debris on the floor of what had been our walk in robe but was now host to most of the glass and china from the dresser formerly upstairs. In addition to many pieces of cup, saucer and mug that Ros will eventually turn into a mosaic, I managed to find another one of her rings,a lovely surprise as I was really hoping to find my set of car keys with the "Life begins at 40" brass tag on it. The keys didn't turn up so I obviously didn't leave them where I thought I had. Some would say, "Now that's a surprise!".

Ros also found and collected several buckets worth of pottery and crockery from the kitchen

In the study/dining area, a couple of other items that I was hoping to find, namely the remains of my old C8 Celestron 200mm Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope and a set of boule or boche depending on which side of the Alps you hail from, did eventually turn up after much raking of book ash - shades of 'Fahrenheit 451' and I'm a fireman too!

The telescope legs came first, followed by the no longer mirrored lens complete with hole no longer quite central, in a lop-sided disc of barely translucent slag. What a bloody waste. I stopped looking for a while. The chromed steel boche balls were not as I had anticipated, neatly together as they had been in their wooden box. Rather they were spread across a couple of metres, due no doubt to the floor of the study burning through and tipping them onto the dirt underfloor.

Tired and not a little exhausted, we went wearily home. It had been a good Friday!

On Saturday we did some general clearing up and watering and I put about 30 odd star pickets in the ground ready to make a fence for Woody the goat who we hope to have back here soon.

Sunday - We had more or less "planned" to meet with Richard and Jan about 9-ish up at the farm but not having heard from them decided that we wouldn't hurry up. So after a leisurely start and the inevitable trip to Mitre 10 to pick up yet another useful thing, such as a couple of plastic petrol cans and some two stroke oil for the chainsaw, we arrived at Little Wood. Ros went to visit the Uphills for a cup of coffee while I assembled the chainsaw.

She'd been gone about 15 mins and I'd just made the final adjustments to the chain tension when Richard and Jan arrived, for the second time. They'd been here at 0900 but not finding us had gone for a drive. Jan went off to join Ros for a cuppa while Richard and I wandered around looking at stuff in a fairly haphazard sort of way and talking about nothing in particular apart from fires, their effects and the dehumanising impacts of crises on bureaucracies, the usual light banter we engage in.

By the time Ros and Jan came back, we'd performed some useful work by moving the chiminea to a location less likely to be damaged by the clean-up crews and generally wandered about the remainder of the site.

Leaving us with hot water, coffee and tea and some very tasty sandwiches and apples, Jan and Richard drove off to Hurstbridge to collect their two sons for a family day together.

We spent most of the rest of the day cutting down burned trees and shrubs and then cutting them up and stacking them. Isn't English a wonderful language?!!

Easter Monday was yet another busy day. We'd discovered via Ros' message bank that Lesley had actually come up on Saturday and finding us not there had after waiting around for a while, sensibly driven home.

As I wanted to check a couple of prices on tools at Bunnings and Mitre 10, we'd arranged for Lesley to collect Ros on Sunday and drive directly to the farm, while I meandered around. The bloke I wanted to talk to at Bunnings was busy with an other customer and after watching them go from one location to another at what seemed like snail pace, picking up an item here and then doubling back and getting another there they eventually walked out of the tools section and so did I.

A pair of fencing pliers for me and a retractable clothes line for Cait which I'd been meaning to get for a couple of weeks, saw the end of shopping at Mitre 10 in Diamond Creek and me on my way to the farm.

By the time I arrived, Lesley and Ros had been joined by Yvonne a neighbour from Nink's Road who had also lost a house, cottage and several sheds. We chatted for a bit and when Yvonne had departed got down to the serious business of log stacking, extensive pruning, fence removal, followed by a relaxed picnic lunch under the lebanese cedar which had best survived the fire. The tools purchased and donated by Lesley's partner Stephen, apart from the axe and bow saw, have had a very fine working out and I am most grateful to have them and a great wooden tool box made by lesley's dad in which to store them.

Lunch over, we got on with it and towards 4-ish had a very large pile of branches and twigs and beautifully pruned Camellias courtesy of Lesley who drove off exhausted into the sunset - well it wasn't quite dusk, but she'd definitely done a great days work!

Some short time before or perhaps it was after Lesley's departure, a little yellow car appeared in the driveway and it wasn't until Cath got out that I recognised her, Jamie and the girls who live a couple of doors down from Cait and Nicco. They had come for a quick visit and to offer their services for a future clean-up day. It was rather nice - almost like being at home again, with people dropping in and work getting done.

A great end to the Easter Week.

Back at Work 07 Apr, 2009

A very short blog today. Back at work with a bunch of emails to catch up and a meeting. It actually feels quite good to be back although I need to get my three days/week sorted out quickly now that I have design consultancies to complete.

Nearly forgot ... Last Friday morning we met with the GROCON Project Coordinator up at 2335. It seems to be a relatively straight forward process and they'll even try and pile up the good bricks for us. We asked to have Easter to do our bits and pieces before handing over to them for the clean-up. Progress at last!

Had coffee with an IBM colleague who is working with a bunch of folk offering to provide free PM and scheduling assistance to local Councils affected by the bushfires. Not getting a lot of traction. I'm not surprised and have offered to assist if I can - we'll follow up on Thursday.

MIFGS & Beyond - April 6, 2009

Well MIFGS is over and I am utterly whacked. I came home this evening after the clean-up and slept for about an hour before I was able to even think about dinner, let alone engage in conversation with humans.

Before I move on to the flower show, I've remembered that when we were in Kapunda, one of the ladies from a local sewing shop had requested all of her customers to offer something useful for bushfire survivors. She had an enormous response including a sewing machine which she offered to Ros, knitting machines, quilting materials and books, magazines and sewing and quilting accoutrements. Once again demonstrating the enormous generosity of ordinary people there was far more than we could possibly carry, so it has gone into storage. In the meantime, Ros will try and arrange for the Baptist Church which is now handling the distribution of such items, to have it all transported to Victoria.l

Following set-up of my display for MIFGS on Monday & Tuesday, I have spent about 8 hours daily from Wed - Sun talking to people about my display, answering questions about groundcovers - I reckon I've written "Creeping Boobialla - fine leaf" about 500 times at least and if sales of it and Sea Lavender which was the other great hit, don't go up as a direct result of this, I will be very surprised indeed. Creeping Boobialla or myoporum parvifolium is really an excellent groundcover that wasn't originally included in my design. However only 16 of the 96 trailing
rosemary ordered were delivered and fortuitously, the City of Whitehorse had delivered more myoporum than they required so I was able to use their excess. Wish I'd thought to include it in the first place!

The whole experience besides being exhausting has been very worthwhile. I really like talking to people about their gardens and have three and possibly four design consultations as a result of interactions at the show. I've also handed out a heap of business cards so perhaps some of them may turn into jobs as well.

Some of you will remember that this was also a competition - I didn't win any prizes although my colleague Phil pulled off two of them and he wasn't even going to enter. - bastard! It was a well deserved win and frankly I thought my design would perhaps be seen to be either attempting to capitalise on the recent bushfires or in fact be a little too confronting. This latter view was underpinned by a woman who muttered "This is in very poor taste!" and when I asked why she thought it was in bad taste said that it was too soon after the fires and people would not want to be reminded of the loss and destruction. She was somewhat mollified when I explained that the burned ruins were my own and the design my reponse and hope for the future.

Some people were moved to tears with many standing in silence before moving on without speaking. I received many congratulations and best wishes for having the courage to respond so positively to such a life impacting event. Overall, the responses were many and varied, from "Did you have a fire here last night?" and, "What happend to your display?", to "Gees. this looks just like my backyard! " and "Now I know what to do next time I have a pile of broken bricks to get rid of.".

Of them all my two favourites were from children. One a young girl of about 8 or 9 who said,"Wow this is cool!" and the other a young boy of similar age, whose mother said they'd been talking about it and he made her come back so he could ask if I'd designed it, because it was his favourite! Who needs more prizes than this!?
"

Back in the Blogosphere 2 April, 2009

Apologies to all I told I was getting back on air yesterday or the day before...

Here's a synopsis of the week 23 - 28/03/09
After a week off in Kapunda SA where we: stayed with old friends and enjoyed much food and conversation, spent a very pleasant evening with dinner at Ngapala, followed by numerous Bundy & Cokes and much deliberation about house plans. Slept. Visited my oldest mate and his wife for long lunch at Westlakes, had dinner and stayed overnight in Morphet Vale. Stopped briefly somewhere at a Delfin Estate shopping centre I've forgotten for a coffee and a kitchener bun - when will I realise that they never taste as good as I remember - more food and conversation in Kapunda, interview with a charming newspaper person dinner sleep.Visit to a very good nursery in Nuriootpa followed by an excellent lunch at the Kaisler restaurant in Nuriootpa. Highly recommended. Dinner - Sleep - back to Ngapala to finalise a few house details and get my council homework, back for as final cuppa in Kapunda and then we flew home and collapsed.

Actually it wasn't quite as hectic as that, because we had a lovely time and mostly also ate breakfast - I've just crammed it all together so I'm not tempted to try and expand it and get very far behind.

The most useful thing post the trip, distilled from the many conversations, was the realisation that trying to fight or speed up the various systems, departments organisations et. al. with whom one has to deal in building barns or houses or even one suspects breathing, is an exercise in futility and once again the bamboo provides a better model than the oak - grasshopper!

30 April, 2009
We'd come back to Vic on Saturday because the Royal Commissioners examining our little bushfire experience were having what they termed informal meetings with those who had been effected by the bushfires in the St Andrews area. They were seeking the answers to three questions which I will include tomorrow because they are upstairs and I don't want to disturb Ros by ferreting around.

The proceedings were introduced by the facilitator, closely followed by the Royal Commissioner who explained why they'd come and what they were hoping to find out.

The process was to have tables of 6 - 8 with a scribe provided by the commission and a table spokesperson loosely elected by those around the table. All of the tables considered each of the questions in turn and provided via the spokesperson, the concensus of the table. this was taken down on the inevitable butchers paper for subsequent compilation and review

The whole process was professionally facilitated and in my opinion, very well managed. In the next week or so we should all receive a summary of the responses. There will also be opportunities to make separate and detailed submissions to the Commission or in fact to appear before them if one so desires.

No details are provided because the whole exercise was effectively held "in camera".

Monday 31 March

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show - (MIFGS) preparation

Some of you may already know but for those who don't, last year I completed a Certificate 3 in Horticulture at the Greensborough campus of the North Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT). I've almost always had a bit of a vegetable garden but this was primarily begun as both a therapeutic (I was suffering from depression at the time) and a vocational opportunity, although I wasn't exactly sure where it might lead other than out of IT.

During the course I discovered that I was not only interested in garden design but actually reasonably good at it and was encouraged by my lecturers to enrol in a Certificate 4 Garden Design Subject, which included designing an Achievable Garden for MFGIS 2009. An Achievable Garden is required to be designed and built in a 3m x 5m space, cost no more than about $1,500 and be something that the average gardener could reasonably be expected to build without needing recourse to Jamie Durie or any of his mates. Greensborough NMIT was allocated 4 spaces including mine.

Prior to the fire I had been working on a design based around the impact of the ozone layer, climate change and the notion that despite all the doom, gloom and gereral lack of water it was still possible to have a green and colourful garden.

Feb 7 changed all that and up until the last evening before the designs were due for submission, I had been struggling to work out how to incorporate the drama of the of the destruction of our house and property into a design which also reflected the sense of hope and regrowth and rebuilding that had inspired me when a blackened and seemingly dead lemon tree had burst into leaf and bloom less than two weeks after the fire.

I had arrived at tech on the final Thursday evening, having pretty much decided that I wouldn't enter the competition but would instead design our new home garden. I had reckoned without Rhonda, one of my lecturers who cajoled (she would use the term "bullied') me into picking up a drafting pen and putting my ideas onto paper. She wasn't giving an inch and by the end of the evening I had completed a design and plant list that I was happy with and what's more had discovered the benefits of horticultural therapy. I was and am most grateful to Rhonda who had the insight to know that I just needed a fairly hefty shove in the right direction.

By the weekend, I will have learned how to use my new scanner/printer/coffee maker and will include the design philosophy, design and photographs of my display during and after construction.

This space deliberately left almost blank

Suffice it to say that on Sunday evening, I filled a 6'x8' trailer with burned half bricks, roofing iron and sundry other blackened bushfire artefacts including two very dead and blackened Grevillea and carted it all to the display area on Monday morning.

The whole of Monday and Tuesday were spent in constructing the display, including all of the plants, shrubs and trees By Tuesday evening I was a very tired little vegemite, having among other things dug and redug the holes for the three spotted gums three times, Before I was satisfied that they were in the correct position.

My reward for all this effort was an interview for a magazine article by Alan the Plant Industry Association Chair and a TV interview with Graham Ross of Better Homes and gardens which unless it gets the chop, will be shown on Friday evening on Channel 7 at 7:30 pm EAST.

That's it for tonight.